Monday, January 24, 2011

Updated patch notes - poor new Paladins

Well, I was writing about a new baby retadin I rolled and how ridiculously OP he is in full BoA gear at level 11. Like, seriously sick OP. No, instead I'm going to touch on the latest round of hits to the Holy Paladin.

From the folks over at Blizzard comes the following hits to our supreme awesomeness.

Flash of Light cost has been increased by approximately 10%.

Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.

Denounce now has a spell overlay (go go shockadin!)

Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the effect granted by Crusader Aura (because that speed boost for 6sec was game breaking in AV).

Protector of the Innocent now heals for 30% less.

Divine Plea down to 9sec, but restores 12% mana (18% with glyph)

My face, it stings

Obviously there are too may people playing Paladins and GC must play a priest. I mean look at all the buffs they got, and we just got a little buff to our Divine Plea. Oh sure, Druids have a 3 min CD on their innervate, but damn it - we're supposed to be the chosen ones. And nerfingPotI? Wasn't removing the triple dip of having it proc on yourself, with BoL on, and getting 45k healing from one Holy Light enough of a nerf! That's it, I'm off to the forums to write my QQ goodbye post and maybe start a petition and protest.

(end sarcasm)

In reality

These changes are all pretty standard I think. The writing was definitely on the wall when it was announced that DP was being buffed. Our mana regeneration is already amazing, when you consider that we can generate a positive 2500 mana (mana returned minus the cost of the judgement) every eight seconds, plus another 1k per melee swing. Add to that the gearing slide, and we were going to get out of control very quickly.

Currently I'm sitting at an iLvl of about 356 - obviously this doesn't mean jack, but it does give you an idea of what we're looking at here. I'm still 3x pieces short of optimal 359 gear, haven't downed a single heroic raid boss, and I have (unbuffed) 2563 mp5 in combat, and 98k+ mana. Now if my math is correct, a single Holy Light (in live) clocks in at a cost of 2107 mana (.09*23422). So assuming I have BoM, replenishment, and no other buffs - we get the following.

So - casting for twenty seconds I will get off 10 Holy Lights, with one extra second left over. Let's assume I don't judge, though I should be, in that time. I will spend 21,070 mana on Holy Lights, get 2 full replenishments, and 4 cycles of mp5 (BoM and spirit regen). Meaning we have the following formula.

(2,107*10) - (2,563*4 + 326*4 + 986*2) = 7542. That's it - 20 seconds of healing for about 7% of my total mana. While this isn't massive throughput, there's something to be said for metronome healing. As spellpower, INT, and spirit all go up on our gear, this would continue to get out of control.

Some other changes

The change to PotI is going to affect us a little, but I think it's more to address the bug that Chase pointed out a few weeks ago. It seems that regardless of how small of a heal we landed, we'd get 6k or so from PotI, which then became 3k more on our BoL target. This change won't be game breaking, but PvP will probably see an impact. I know I'll feel it on a few fights though. It was pretty nice to heal one tank, knowing your BoL target was getting 75% of your total healing.

The change to Crusader aura was probably PvP oriented as well, unless it was working on Al'akir. That's the only fight I can think of where having a speed boost might help (is there even a heroic Al'akir?), since it may count you as flying like it did on Valithria. I can see that helping if you were say trapped at the bottom and needed to fly through the clouds to the top (apparently they despawn 2 or 3 levels above you). Hit Aura Master and Crusader. Certainly something to think about till the patch goes live.

Conclusion

The patch is still in the works, but I don't see these changes getting reversed. Paladins are ridiculously powerful right now, and we do scale well with gear. I also have to admit that while I absolutely loathed healing Wrath content with Cata skills, I'm loving the current design and setup of the Holy Paladin.

5 comments:

I have to say, I completely agree with you. As I was thinking about these changes, I realized that my playstyle isn't really going to be affected by them. I'm still going to Holy Shock and Judge on CD and I'm still going to be using Holy Light as much as I can instead of Divine Light or Flash of Light.

I was noticing that my Holy Light, at my current gear level is pretty much mana neutral. If I find that the added costs are pinching me too much, I can always try to stack a bit more spirit. However, I don't think that's going to be necessary.

Although, I will mourn the loss of my Crusader Aura + AM perk. Couldn't they have made it so it didn't work in pvp battlegrounds, instead of taking it completely out?

I think the real issue with AM and Crusader - while partially effective in BGs (probably more so in rated BGs) was the movement I mentioned in Al'akir. I know I used to run Crusader Aura on Valithria, because I'd fly around getting healing orbs that much faster. My guess is someone started using it there, and then was gaming the lightning clouds.

At 3x the cost of HL, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but it is still something I tap for special occasions. There are a few instances where I need a heal, and I need it right now, and HS or WoG aren't available. Fortunately, those times are few and far between.

I know I'm avoiding Flash of Light, possibly to my detriment. Plus the few times I've used the spell it did not seem to heal for much at all.

A Crusader/AM hack on Al'akir must be pretty powerful (and even more in the heroic version) to merit a nerf. It's sad this route is so much easier than tweaking the movement mechanics to not be affected by Crusader aura. Losing a random 'fun' ability is still frustrating.